Given the defence-first bent to all four of the remaining teams in the Stanley Cup tournament, there’s an assumption that there’s a new blueprint being sketched for NHL success.

Leafs vice-president of hockey operations Dave Poulin, centre, with president and GM Brian Burke, right, and senior VP of hockey operations Dave Nonis, says the hockey on display in the playoffs is "totally different" from that in the regular season.

If you need more evidence that shot blocking has gone from occasional sacrifice to everyday hockey strategy, Dave Poulin suggests you watch a lunch-hour shinny game or two.

Poulin, the Maple Leafs’ vice-president of hockey operations, played some 13 seasons in the NHL. He succeeded Bobby Clarke as captain of the Philadelphia Flyers. He won a Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward. He understands what it means to weigh the risk of bodily harm against the reward of victory. So you’ll excuse him if he laughs a little when he considers this particular aspect of the game’s evolution. Hockey’s blocked shot, once a symbol of hurt-inducing selflessness, has even infiltrated the pickup games in which Poulin still skates a couple of times a week.

“There’s shot blocking in men’s league hockey right now, it’s so ridiculous,” Poulin was saying on Monday. “It used to be that we’d call it getting hit by a shot. Now guys will stand in front of it on purpose. It’s remarkable.”

Given the defence-first bent to all four of the remaining teams in the Stanley Cup tournament, there’s an assumption that there’s a new blueprint being sketched for NHL success. It’s a copy-cat league, after all, and the copy cats must have noticed that none of the teams that finished in the top 10 in regular-season scoring made it to the post-season’s final four. Clearly the dead puck era has been brought back to life.

Still, what that means for a team like the Leafs, who haven’t played a post-season game since 2004, is tough to say. Getting into the playoffs and succeeding in them are two very different things. The stylistic divide between an NHL game in May compared with the version on offer in November seems awfully wide.

“If you took the first round of the playoffs and compared it to the first half of the season, it’s totally different hockey,” Poulin said. “You’re almost thinking, ‘Do we have to have a team (designed) for the regular season, and a totally different team built for the playoffs?’ It was that dramatically different.”

Indeed, teams that blocked copious shots in the regular season didn’t necessarily have success. According to stats on NHL.com, eight of the top 11 teams in regular-season blocks — the No. 11 Leafs among them — didn’t make the post-season.

What else is different? It’s clear to many observers that the clutch-and-grab game — pronounced dead after the 2004-05 season was sacrificed to a lockout and a new era of freer-flowing hockey was proclaimed — has crept back to acceptance. Various Leafs quietly complained about the trend near the tail end of the regular season, and the tolerance for obstruction has only become more obvious as the playoffs have rolled on.

“It’s clamped down,” Poulin said. “There’s not a lot of room out there to move. . . . The oldest adage is defence wins in the playoffs. I guess we’re seeing that first-hand.”

What can the Leafs learn from the success of the remaining four teams? Much of it isn’t a huge revelation. Clearly goaltending has never been more important, and Toronto must consider every option to land a credible backstop.

All four teams have shown that aggressive forechecking is one of the game’s best weapons (and hardly a Toronto strength), although it’s debatable whether or not coach Randy Carlyle’s more conservative approach is a wiser option during the regular-season grind, especially given Toronto’s current lack of the kind of speedy and physical forwards that dot the rosters of the remaining contenders.

Mind you, there’s not necessarily hard science at work here when it comes to procuring new talent.

“You still look for character players who can elevate their game,” Poulin said.

That’s players, plural. If these playoffs have proven anything to Poulin, it’s that roster depth is key.

“The bottom line, to me, that is really stressed in the playoffs is how many players you need to be successful,” Poulin said. “And you can’t just have ’em — they have to play well. (Depth) is enormous at this time of year . . . ”

Also enormous are today’s shin pads, which at least partly explains the popularization of the purposeful repelling of pucks by players not wearing goalie gear.

“The equipment is much, much better. But the puck still hurts and it still finds holes. I’m amazed more people aren’t getting hurt, I really am. I’ve been hit by a puck in an open area, and it can break a bone as well as anything,” Poulin said.

Perhaps that hard-won knowledge accounts for why Poulin isn’t among the men’s league warriors who make a habit of standing in front of slappers.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.